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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26078341">I Have A Mullet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lartovio/pseuds/Halogalopaghost'>Halogalopaghost (Lartovio)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gravity Falls</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>All hurt no comfort babee, portal ford</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:41:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,326</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26078341</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lartovio/pseuds/Halogalopaghost</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Several months after Ford goes through the portal, he finds himself alone and looking a lot more like his brother than he's comfortable with.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Have A Mullet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I actually wrote an entire story start to finish, what a revolutionary concept :O</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Ford never liked crowds. He never liked the sensation of breathing in the air that others were exhaling, he didn’t like when strangers’ elbows rubbed up against his and made him feel like his skin was on fire and his chest was going to collapse. College helped him get over a little bit of it--Fiddleford didn’t suffer the same distaste for people, and he made a point to drag Ford to parties whenever he could swing it. Even as he breathed in the sharp, electric air of OZ-1900, he could still smell the marijuana smoke and patchouli that Fiddleford’s friends somehow always smelled like. Sometimes, those gatherings weren’t so bad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This, unfortunately, was very bad. He had no choice but to barrel his way through the crowds of people (aliens, interdimensional beings) with two Peacekeeper droids hot on his trail.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shoved his cloth-wrapped bundle into the pocket of his fraying coat and pulled his stolen cowl up over the bottom half of his face. People shouted at him as he jostled and shoved and touched, but they parted like water for the Peacekeepers. Ford tucked away a note to himself: contemplate the moral concept of peacekeeper droids who won’t allow petty theft, but will in fact disrupt the public peace to stop it. In the moment, it seemed pretty pointless to For.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He caught sight of an alley in the corner of his eye--just a narrow few feet of space between the blue brick buildings and neon signs that lined the streets here. His boots crunched on the grit of the asphalt beneath him as he skidded to a stop and changed course. He didn’t look over his shoulder even as he cleared the other end of the alley and darted into another. He didn’t look when he slipped down a ladder and into a lower level of the city, he didn’t look when he could no longer hear the sirens behind him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only when he slid into a niche in the wall of a back alley did he stop. His heart pounded in his chest so hard that he could feel it beating in his face and fingers. His chest heaved while he tried to catch his breath, lungs burning. The air composition here wasn't quite optimal for a human of his evolutionary level, and each breath felt more and more like drowning. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The niche was dark, and the walls were damp with humidity. Air didn’t move through it, there was no light inside of it, and only a scrap of scavenged cloth separated him from the rest of the world outside. But for now, for the last two weeks...it was home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once he finally caught his breath, he peeled his damp coat off, removed the cloth bundle from his pocket, and balled up the coat into something like a pillow, shoving it into the far corner of his niche. He flicked his tiny light on; a tiny, weak thing, but it never needed a power source.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His mouth quirked to the side as he stared into the pink glow. Just a year ago, he would have disassembled the little light right away. Now, as long as it worked, he didn’t care </span>
  <em>
    <span>how</span>
  </em>
  <span>. His hand closed over the cloth and gently unwrapped the bundle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In addition to the air composition, this dimension seemed determined to starve him to death. Everything he had eaten so far made him sicker than a dog--everything except this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Avocados, it seems, had somehow escaped the heavy genetic modification and chemical enhancement of the other foods here. They were some kind of delicacy, as far as he’d gathered. Every restaurant boasted their versions of “avocado toast” and “avocado scrambles” and “avocado anything you can imagine”. It maddened him to no end.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d managed to swipe two of the dark, wrinkly things before the Peacekeepers locked their crosshairs on him. Thankfully, they seemed to have escaped the chase without a scratch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ford withdrew a knife from the waist of his pants, where the thing sat constantly against his skin, reassuring him whenever a surly stranger stared at him just a little too long. He held the avocado in his palm and put the edge against it. He stopped when he caught sight of his reflection in the silver glint of the blade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He held the knife up higher, in front of his face. The warped image showed him a different man than he knew himself to be. This one had wild eyes, rimmed red and black with lack of sleep. His beard was as patchy as it had ever been, lending to the hobo aesthetic, and his hair...stars above, his </span>
  <em>
    <span>hair</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He put the avocado down and ran his hand over his greasy hair. The curls were nearly matted into each other, unwashed and unkempt. The top of it had grown out a few inches now, falling over his forehead. The back of it, though, was touching his shoulders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>I have a MULLET, Stanford!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The words, unexpected, bounced around in his head for a moment like the Ghost of Christmas Past. He hadn’t even thought of it since Stanley had first said it, since his mind had been far more occupied with </span>
  <em>
    <span>surviving</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but now--now it was hilarious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Laughter bubbled up from some deep, dark place within the pit of his stomach. He threw his head back in laughter, practically howling in the small space. His voice sounded far away and maniacal to his own ears. He laughed until tears streamed down his cheeks and at some point, the bought of laughter turned into fits of sobs. He drew his aching legs up to his chest and let the knife clatter to the ground as he sobbed into the knees of his trousers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Where was Stanley now? Did he stay in the cabin? Was he trying to restart the portal and come to save him?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He let out a bitter, dark sound, something between a laugh and a sob. The small space warped it and as far as Ford was concerned, it came from another person altogether.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t need Stanley to fight his battles any more. He had become quite adept at things only his breather used to boast--the famous five-fingered discount, the subtle art of lying, the less subtle art of throwing a mean left hook. He hadn't needed Stanley for a long time, and nothing about this multi-dimensional dilemma changed that. Wasn’t it Stanley’s fault that he was even in this mess, anyway? If he had just </span>
  <em>
    <span>listened</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that pig-headed, stubborn son of a bitch. If he had known the value of what he held in his hands, what he tried to light on fire? And now what did it matter? It was no use to Ford here, and it was no use to Stanley there. He hoped his brother had burned it after all, locked the basement door, and left the cabin to rot away. It was just as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It doesn’t matter,” he whispered to himself through clenched teeth. “It doesn’t matter.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As long as no one opens that portal back up, as long as Cipher isn’t allowed to escape, it doesn’t matter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He grabbed the knife up again, gripping it white-knuckle tight. Without a mirror to guide himself, he took a handful of his hair and began to saw away. A heavy, dirty lump of curls came away into his hand, and it knocked the breath out of him as he stared at it. He could feel cool air on his neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did it again, and again, and again, hacking at his hair as close to his scalp as he could come without cutting himself. And he cut himself anyway, knocking his knuckles and fingertips time and time again as he wildly slashed through his own hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He dropped the knife again, not bothering to check his appearance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wondered if Stan ever got himself a haircut.</span>
</p>
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